Dennis O’Driscoll was born in Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland in 1954. He published nine books of poetry, three chapbooks and a collection of essays and reviews. He also edited and compiled contemporary quotations about poets and poetry, and published Stepping Stones, a collection of his interviews with Seamus Heaney. He died in Naas, Co. Kildare on Christmas Eve, 2012.